The Old Farmer's Almanac 2015 (2 page)

Celeste Longacre,
our astrologer, often refers to astrology as “a study of timing, and timing is everything.” A New Hampshire native, she has been a practicing astrologer for more than 25 years. Her book, Love Signs (Sweet Fern Publications, 1999), is available for sale on her Web site,
www.yourlovesigns.com
.

Michael Steinberg,
our meteorologist, has been forecasting weather for the Almanac since 1996. In addition to college degrees in atmospheric science and meteorology, he brings a lifetime of experience to the task: He began predicting weather when he attended the only high school in the world with weather Teletypes and radar.

The 2015 Edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac

Established in 1792 and published every year thereafter
Robert B. Thomas, founder (1766–1846) Yankee Publishing Inc.

P.O. Box 520, 1121 Main Street, Dublin, NH 03444 Phone: 603-563-8111 • Fax: 603-563-8252

PUBLISHER
(23rd since 1792): Sherin Pierce

EDITOR IN CHIEF:
Judson D. Hale Sr.

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DISTRIBUTORS

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Bookstore: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Boston, MA

The Old Farmer’s Almanac
publications are available for sales promotions or premiums. Contact Beacon Promotions,
[email protected]
.

YANKEE PUBLISHING INCORPORATED

Jamie Trowbridge, President; Judson D. Hale Sr., Senior Vice President; Paul Belliveau, Jody Bugbee, Judson D. Hale Jr., Brook Holmberg, Sherin Pierce, Vice Presidents.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac/Yankee Publishing Inc. assumes no responsibility for claims made by advertisers or failure by its advertisers to deliver any goods or services advertised herein. Publication of any advertisement by The Old Farmer’s Almanac/ Yankee Publishing Inc. is not an endorsement of the product or service advertised therein.

Printed in U.S.A.

Forecasts, facts, and trends that define our life and times
Compiled by Stacey Kusterbeck

Photo: Zoey Kroll/Wikimedia

As people become more concerned about the quality of the food they eat and the environment in which they live, urban farms will continue to grow in number.

–
Michael Levenston, City Farmer Society, Vancouver, British Columbia

SOME URBAN FARMERS

are renting space on front lawns to grow crops. Others are growing produce hydroponically in greenhouses on rooftops.

FARMERS EVERYWHERE

are renting pollinating bee hives from hobby beekeepers; creating free apps, kids’ books, and lesson plans to teach kids where food comes from; grazing their goats in parks and woodlands to reduce feed cost and clear land.

PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT

• Farmers posting their surplus produce on Web sites, deeply discounted, so that it can be bought and used by restaurants and home cooks.
  
• Restaurants and caterers creating dishes from food waste.
  
• Companies buying bruised, misshapen produce rejected by supermarkets and using it to make low-cost meals for people in need.
  

WE’RE SAVING WATER

• growing drought-resistant edibles such as prickly pear cactus
  
• relying on satellite imagery to predict drought and crop yields
  
• using plastic barriers to hold water in the root zones of plants
  

EVERYBODY’S DOING IT

• “aquafarming” at home: growing leafy greens or herbs over fishbowls (the roots keep the water clean and fish waste feeds the plants)
  

Home cooks will explore global cuisines.

–
Maile Carpenter, editor in chief, Food Network Magazine

EVERYBODY’S DOING IT

• paying attention to specific regional flavors and cooking styles, such as Greek, Korean, and Vietnamese
  
• making desserts in oversize pie dishes and cooking two roasts at once in large Dutch ovens
  
• using phone apps to know when foods in the fridge are about to expire
  

OUR FAVE CRAVES:

chocolate teas, seaweed chips, truffle ketchup

DINERS ARE DEMANDING...

• menus that carry the names of the farms that produced their food
  
• meats in season from small farm producers
  
• “meaterys” that put every part of the animal on the menu
  
• to see food being made, e.g., cheese in big vats
  

PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT

• hamburgers made from laboratory-grown meat
  

WORKPLACE CAFÉS

are labeling dishes with “traffic light” colors (red, yellow, green), based on nutrition levels and/or placing healthy food at eye level and unhealthy food out of reach.

WEIGHTY RESEARCH

• Dieters who had a bit of sweets per day shed 15 additional pounds, on average.
  
• Putting foods on a “Do Not Eat” list makes us crave them more.
  

More home gardeners are looking to their gardens as an oasis for providing backyard habitat, food for themselves, and beauty.

–
Maree Gaetani, spokesperson, Gardener’s Supply Company

EVERYBODY’S DOING IT

• swapping seeds
  
• building cold rooms or root cellars
  
• grafting different varieties on one plant (e.g., tomatoes with potatoes; multiple apples on a single tree)
  
• growing “microgreens”: spinach, pea, beet, or purple mustard seedlings for use in salads, soups, and sandwiches
  

MORE HOME GROWERS

are leaving some harvestable vegetables for foraging pollinators and/or creating “bee hotels” with dead trees or limbs to increase the number of nesting habitats for bees.

Colorful Combos

FOR THE EYE, FOR POLLINATORS, AND FOR BOUQUETS...

• ‘Sonnet Orange Scarlet’ snapdragons, ‘Red Salad Bowl’ lettuce, and ‘Triple Curled’ parsley
  
• red giant mustard, ‘Orange Fantasia’ Swiss chard, and Shungiku greens
  
• ‘Rosa Bianca’ eggplant with ‘French Vanilla’ marigolds
  
• ‘Green Envy’ zinnia, ‘Limelight Spray’ millet, and ‘Green Ball’ dianthus
  
• ‘Redbor’ kale and ‘Bull’s Blood’ beet
  

FAVORITE FRESH PICKS...

• kale, beets, and turnips to make healthy chips
  
• colorful varieties: blue-green ‘Savoy Express’ cabbage, ‘Blue Solaise’ leek, ‘Black Seeded Simpson’ lettuce, and purple pea pods ‘Shiraz’
  
• drought-tolerant varieties: ‘Zapotec’ pleated tomato, ‘Rutgers’ tomato, ‘Painted Mountain’ corn
  
• long-producing heirlooms: ‘Glass Gem’ corn, ‘Green Zebra’, and ‘Amana Orange’ tomatoes
  

–
Lisa Hilgenberg, fruit and vegetable garden horticulturist, Chicago Botanic Garden

Much of health care currently taking place within hospitals and clinics will be shifted tothe home or corner drugstore.

–
Dr. Steven Steinhubl, director of digital medicine, Scripps Health, San Diego, California

THE DOCTOR IS IN...

our pockets, with wearable sensors that diagnose viral and bacterial infections and track our stress, sleep, heart rhythm, and blood pressure.

MEDICAL MIRACLES COMING SOON

• capsules in the body that take and transmit pictures to doctors
  
• wheelchairs that turn in the direction in which the user thinks about moving his or her hands